8.   PLACE NAMES AND STORIES
names in the Karnataka are often interesting.
Some of them show a keen poetic sense; others are
based on legends; round others, like $agutw_f peculiar
to the Malnad, popular fancy has woven stories; and
all such names are reminiscent of a culture that has
grown through the centuries and brooded over genera-
tions of men.
The jasmine is perhaps the favourite flower of the
Kannada people.   It will have been noticed that it re-
curs frequently in folk-song and also that jasmine-white
is a phrase used in describing Siva.   The flower is found
associated with many villages all over the country; one
village is the village of jasmine;  another the double
jasmine; another the jasmine blossom.   The Kannada
name of the flower Mollige has a soft and liquid sound*
This also must have weighed with the persons coining
the names for their villages.   The name combinations
are soft and pleasant to the ear.   The Champaka occurs
in several names.   Champaka wood is a common name
in the hill country and simply Champak is found in the
plains.   The lotus similarly appears in many names,
"Lotus Tank", "Lotus Pond".   In other names, the
word Siri or Amruta occurs.   Siri is wealth or pros-
perity, and Amruta is nectar.   We have the courtyard
of wealth, the prosperous one, the abode of wealth;
the town of nectar and the village of nectar.   Other
names show even greater poetic sense: the dweller on
the peak, the mellifluous note or the fragrant wood, the
lane of pearl.   Banavasi, "the dweller in the wood", is